POD 6-09-19 GE Empress 30 dishwasher

[turquoisedude]

Never seen one in person nor in my travels, but dammit I want one! Of course, a certain party in Connecticut is also on the prowl, so I'll have my work cut out for me... LOL

Seriously, though, has anyone here owned or used one? I believe John (combo52) extracted the power-drive mechanism from a scrapped one at some point. I can't really imagine having a power-operated roll-out dishwasher - it must have something else!

 

[combo52]

30" GE Roll-Out DW

Yes I do have the power drive assembly for one of these interesting DWs, I just found it while cleaning out my basement the other month, My brother Jeff and I took it off an old GE DW at the local Hotpoint dealer and brought it home on my bicycle, LOL, but I have never seen another one of these DWs since.

 

They probably could have washed that well overall in that big rectangular tub anyway, but it sure would be cool to find one.

 

John L

 

[frigilux]

OK, having a 30" dishwasher is the stuff dreams are made of for a person who cooks a lot. And they show the detergent dispenser, so I don't have to ask about that for the first time in about three days' worth of PODs.

However...the ad says you don't have to remove the top rack to load the bottom rack. How is that possible? Are you supposed to reach through the open area in the center of the top rack to load the lower one?

We had a 1955 Westy roll-out (built-in), but I didn't come onto the scene 'til '59 and we moved in '65. As a tyke, I was constantly starting the thing up whenever the mood struck, LOL.

Anyway, to get back to the point, I thought the upper rack was lifted out to load the lower first; then the upper rack was replaced and loaded. Are the memories of a 4-5 year old Frigilux failing me?

 

[turquoisedude]

Loading a GE pull-out

Eugene, the <new> upper rack design that GE introduced in 1957 was meant to permit loading the lower rack without having to remove the upper one. It had a large U-shaped opening (earlier models were round); the opening on the Empress was larger than the 'standard' 24-inch model. I've used this style of dishwasher and it's easy enough to load...well, I have a long history with top-load dishwashers... LOL

 

[delturner]

Never have owned one, but did know a family that had one back in the 70's. It was really wide, I remember that. All the impeller machines paled in comparison to spray arm machines and were much more difficult to load and fit things in to get clean.

 

[tomturbomatic]

The only thing for which we removed the top rack to load and wash was the round food grill from the charcoal grill which was washed by itself.  We even loaded the 6 qt Revere Ware Dutch Oven into a corner of the lower rack through that opening Of course you lost the upper rack area above it to most things except for the cover.

 

[circlew]

We had the 24" model from 1958 to early 1971, and we rarely took the top rack out. Usually only when a utensil was dropped and couldn't reach otherwise. This machine served the purpose until it was replaced with a much better KitchenAid.

 

[bajaespuma]

Greetings from a Certain Party in Connecticut

I always thought that these would have been popular machines for churches and similar organizations and that's where one of us would maybe find one but as time passes, chances do as well. It's hard enough finding a 24" GE pull-out dishwasher much less an Empress with a working automatic opener. CU wasn't impressed with their performance but I say f**k CU (the jerks rated a 30" wide machine as being able to handle only 1 more place setting than the smaller machines), I wouldn't be coveting one of these because of it's performance anyway. I would love to find one of these anomalies, but if I had to choose between an SU-80 and a 1961 SU-70v.2...

 

[wayupnorth]

I had a Grants Bradford Empress 18 washer with winged agitator and a filter flo given to my ex and I. Lasted 2 loads and died.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Thanks for the drawing of the lower rack. I would have thought that there would have been more dividers running the width of the tank to utilize the space between the plate loops in the corners. I don't understand all of the space given to the bowl and pan holders. Maybe not such a wizbang design after all, but it does seem to be a more workable 30" dishwasher than those things with multiple washarms that came out more recently.

 

[steved]

Back in the day

I was an installer for a local appliance store in the early 70’s. There was a upscale neighborhood built in the late 50’s comprised of mostly mid-level GE executives. I replaced a few of these units there, so I assume all the homes were built with 30” models. The replacements were Maytags as I remember. It would make sense that they have all been long gone.....

 

[cadman]

In the early 00's I went to an estate sale locally full of vintage goodies, and there in the kitchen was one of these 30" GEs in Woodtone Brown. If I had known the rarity of it at the time I would have followed up after the house sold.

A couple years later curiosity got the best of me but try as I might, I never could find that house!

 

[chachp]

30" Dishwashers

 

<span style="font-family: verdana, geneva;">Were there ever any other 30" dishwashers besides the Empress, the Youngstown Kitchens front loader and a Dacor that was around for a little bit but disappeared almost as quickly as it showed up?  Were the older Hotpoint machines all 24".  Some of them look like they would be wider than 24".</span>

 

[tomturbomatic]

There were wider Hotpoints, as you note, but the actual tank with racks was more or less 24 inches; it was just the cabinet that could be 27 inches wide.

 

[bajaespuma]

That's what pissed me off concerning the CU rating. Our 24" SU-70 held at least 12 place settings and you didn't need to be a CU technician to count 12, exactly 12 large slots in that bottom rack for dinner plates, 16, count 'em 16 small slots for bowls,salad and dessert plates plus extra space between the loops for serving dishes, extra small plates and utensils. Also, if one followed the instruction manual you could fit extra small plates such as saucers (remember saucers?)along the sides of the top rack plus one could suspend extra cups and glasses over the access hole in the top rack. The only dishwasher in my experience that could hold more standard dinnerware is another Top-loader, the original Maytag portable. My Mother would complain occasionally about having to reach down to load and unload plates but it wasn't a big deal at all. In fact the GE toploaders were easier to load and unload than the Maytag which required the user to empty one half of the top rack and slide the other half over to reach everything on the bottom.

Again, I think the Empress design was just right for places of worship dining facilities, boarding houses and large families where there would have been dishes but also lots of large serving dishes and cookware. Pity they were discontinued before the advent of the Power Shower, but with GE, you never know.

 

[toploader55]

We had the Princess. Very good capacity. And cleaned well. Ours had the Power Shower. Rarely did we find Yibblets o top of Glassware or Coffee cups.

Noisy... You betcha. But that SOB was steaming through the vents by the time the Main Wash was half done.

I did happen to see around 1966 the Empress in a Allentown Home. The Power Opener was fascinating to ne as I was 11 years old. As we had the princess at the time, I was stunned at the capacity of this machine.

I would have thought that they may have had two dispenser cups because of the extra Large capacity but no, only one, the same size of the Princess and the top loading Mobile Maid.

 

[steved]

This a Princess?

This is a Princess model, correct? In my basement. Noisy is an understatement! But a few houses in my neighborhood had this model, or one like it. At least according to a gal that grew up here.

 

[appnut]

Steve, a family on the other end of the street had a white GE kitchen with this dishwasher.  I've not seen one like it until now.  

 

[toploader55]

That is the first dishwasher we had in our house in 1962,